Light My Way
by AdAbolendam
Summary: "You were supposed to protect us!" Daisy yelled. "Fitz and Simmons? They were our friends! Our family! And May. What did she say, Coulson? What did she do when you left her to fight your battles alone?"
1. Cut Adrift

**Content:** This story picks up where the "6 Months Later" Season 3 finale teaser left off. Things were looking pretty rough for Coulson, so this is my take on why he is not with S.H.I.E.L.D., why he is chasing Daisy, and why the rest of the team (except for Mack) is nowhere to be seen.

 **Disclaimer:** Not Stan Lee. But he's kind enough to let me borrow his characters for a bit! Cheers Stan!

 **Notes:** The title is taken from U2's "Ultra Violet (Light My Way)."

* * *

It was his fifty-fifth birthday and Phil Coulson was alone.

The last three months had been difficult.

Having disappeared shortly after Lincoln's death, Daisy had finally resurfaced. Just not in the way that he had hoped.

A local news station in Miami reported that a sinkhole had opened up, swallowing the mansion that was Ian Quinn's summer home with he and his staff inside. The reporter did not mention Inhuman activity, but Coulson knew it was Daisy. She was going after S.H.I.E.L.D.'s enemies, balancing the scales, in the most vindictive way possible.

The reports continued: an earthquake in Arizona destroyed a facility that housed a breakaway Hydra faction, a bank vault floor caved in the Grand Cayman's (only a few deposit boxes were cleared out, all former-Hydra accounts), a house that served as the home base for some of the Watchdogs was leveled. It was only a matter of time before Daisy Johnson got on the A.T.C.U.'s radar.

Talbot's collusion in the decision not to register Daisy as an Inhuman had been exposed and he was demoted. S.H.I.E.L.D. was officially re-sanctioned as a government agency, just before it was dissolved and assimilated into the A.T.C.U.

The primary objective of the agency became to track the Inhumans, register the individuals and monitor them to insure that they abided by the Sokovia Accords. Any Inhuman who failed to cooperate was summarily tried and sentenced to stasis, until a cure to their condition could be discovered and administered.

Several agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. quit outright.

Coulson and Mack joined the A.T.C.U.

May, Fitz and Simmons handed in their official resignations and dropped off the grid.

As far as the A.T.C.U. was concerned, it appeared as though Coulson's team had gone their separate ways. Which was exactly the point.

Once a week on Saturday, Coulson would go down to the local Starbucks, order a Grande Mocha and spend an hour reading a book or fiddling with his laptop. Right before leaving, he would stop by the men's room. After closing the door on the stall in the far right, he removed a manila envelope from his backpack, took some scotch tape and stuck the package on the back of the toilet tank. On Sunday morning, after finishing his Tall Cappuccino, Leo Fitz removed the message hidden in the bathroom, and took with him back to the new secret S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.

Secret S.H.I.E.L.D. was a small operation, consisting only of Fitz, Simmons, and a dozen field agents and techs. Melinda May was the acting director of the covert agency. In the wake of the A.C.T.U.'s dismemberment of their intelligence apparatus, S.H.I.E.L.D. now existed solely to protect the civil liberties of powered individuals.

Using Coulson and Mack's intel, the S.H.I.E.L.D. team removed targeted Inhumans before they could be tagged and registered. Most were relocated and given new identities. Some stayed with the team, joining the nascent Secret Warriors Initiative.

Elena and Joey worked with the new recruits to help them control their powers and use them in the field. Having no leadership experience and their own unpredictable abilities to contend with, Elena and Joey found themselves constantly overwhelmed with the demands of their new position. The SWI was slow to get off the ground.

They needed Daisy.

Coulson shuffled down the hall to his apartment, steps getting slower as he neared the grey door.

There was nothing in his home that he was eager to get back to, no one he could celebrate with. There wasn't even anyone he could call.

Two weeks ago, S.H.I.E.L.D. had gone dark.

When he went to make the Starbucks dead drop that weekend, there was a note waiting for him on the back of the tank in Fitz's hasty scrawl.

 _SHIELD's been compromised. ATCU knows our location. Odyssey protocol initiated. Will contact ASAP._

They were gone.

The A.T.C.U. had deliberately kept Coulson in the dark, but he knew that the S.H.I.E.L.D. base would have been raided. If there was anyone or anything left, they would be under lock and key in an A.T.C.U. holding facility. S.H.I.E.L.D. was breaking international law by harboring, aiding and abetting persons of interest. All agents could be charged with treason. Any one of the 117 countries that had signed the Sokovia Accords would not hesitate to extradite them to the United States to stand trial, if S.H.I.E.L.D. agents were found in their borders.

Except for Mack, everyone Coulson knew and loved was a fugitive.

After a week's worth of questioning, he had been cleared of suspicion by his agency, but he could not risk contacting anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D., even if he had a number to call.

He turned the key in the lock and shoved the door open. Venetian blinds cut through the yellow tungsten glow from a street lamp, casting horizontal shadows across his living room. He slammed the door back into its sticky frame and reached for the light switch. When his hand contacted warm flesh instead of plastic, he jumped and reached for his gun.

The intruder pinned his arm behind his back and clamped a hand over his mouth. He struggled for a fraction of a second before something made him hesitate.

That smell.

It was familiar: leather and Cosmoline, and just a hint of jasmine.

May.

He turned around and faced her with wide eyes, struggling to see her in the half-light. She smiled just a fraction and released his arm, keeping one hand pressed against his mouth. With her eyes on his, she pressed a finger to her own lips.

He nodded in understanding and she pulled her hand away from his face. She walked over to his coffee table and pointed to a small tangle of wires connected to a microchip: a transmitter. God knows where she had found it in the apartment. If there was one, there were probably more.

The A.T.C.U. was listening.

He should have guessed. There was no way they would have let the former director of a rogue agency off with a simple routine interrogation. They were gathering data on him, hoping he would reveal that he still had ties to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Coulson glanced at her and frowned.

'Okay,' he mouthed. 'Get down.'

May nodded and slumped into a crouch.

They both knew that if he was being bugged, he was probably being watched as well. If they were lucky, it would be from the street rather than by a planted device. He hoped that he was still sharp enough to have noticed a camera hidden in his apartment.

He turned on a lamp and grabbed the remote. Selecting a football game at random, he turned the volume up just high enough to be obnoxious to whoever was listening in. Then he walked to the kitchen and flicked on the overhead light, not looking down as May followed on all fours.

There were no windows in the kitchen. Even if it wasn't safe to talk, they did not have to worry about being seen.

May stood up with a grimace, brushed the hair out of her eyes and leaned against the Formica counter top, as if she had stopped by for a casual chat, rather than a clandestine meeting in a country where she had been marked as a wanted criminal.

Coulson stared at her, torn between relief and exasperation.

'What are you doing here?' He asked. He hoped his disbelief would be apparent from his expression, since he could not raise his voice above a muted whisper.

'I came to get you,' she mouthed back.

His shoulders slumped and he shook his head.

'I can't go. Not yet.'

May pressed her lips in a fine line and exhaled audibly. Not taking her eyes off him, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone. Selecting a notetaking application, she typed:

 _"Have you seen Daisy yet?"_

Coulson read the note and shook his head. He held out his hand, silently asking for the phone and typed:

 _"Just briefly. We had to let her escape. The ATCU was monitoring us._

 _We can't leave without her. She'll be put in stasis when they finally catch up to her. Mack and I are the only reason she hasn't been caught already."_

May read the text as his thumbs flicked over the keypad. He could hear her swallow when she read the last sentence. She knew he was right.

 _"When we leave, she'll be on her own,"_ he continued. _"We've got to take her with us. We've got to at least give her a choice."_

She took the phone from him and looked at him hard.

'How long?' She asked silently.

Coulson considered.

'Two weeks,' he said.

May shook her head, jabbed at the phone furiously and held it up to him.

 _"You and Mack are in danger! The longer you stay, the more you risk being caught!"_

He smirked and grabbed the phone from her.

 _"I'd be fine if I wasn't colluding with a fugitive in my kitchen."_

May rolled her eyes, but Coulson could make out a trace of a blush rising to her cheeks. It was an unnecessary risk coming here and she knew it. She could have given him the orders for an extraction, placed it in the dead drop and he would not have had a chance to argue.

But she wanted him to argue. She did not want to leave Daisy behind any more that he did.

When she did not attempt to snatch her phone back or reply to him, he typed another message:

 _"Was the base evacuated in time? Did everyone get out okay?"_

Her shoulders relaxed a fraction as she nodded the affirmative.

'Good,' he mouthed with a smile.

 _"Where is the new base?"_ He typed.

'Lima,' she responded.

Peru.

It was a good choice. There were a few countries in South America that had yet to sign the Accords, and Peru was one of them. The agents wouldn't have to worry about extradition there. Plus, Lima was nice, good climate, great food…

Peru had come up with them before. When was that?

The stakeout in Mexico City, he remembered, three years ago. He and May parked in an alley waiting for the ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who found Daisy as a baby.

"You'd probably go to South America," she had said, outlining an imaginary exit strategy for him, if he decided to retire. "You speak Spanish—

"Vacation Spanish," he had corrected.

"Lima most likely, what with the growing food scene…"

He looked up at her now, trying, unsuccessfully, to read something more into her stoic expression. Her mask slipped a little and he saw the glimmer of a smile in her eyes.

'Good choice,' he whispered.

'I thought you'd like it,' she replied.

He let out a long breath as reality settled in again. Whenever he left the United States with S.H.I.E.L.D., he would officially be a wanted man. It would be a long time before he would be able to set foot on his native soil without watching his back, if ever. Daisy would not last a week without him and Mack diverting the A.T.C.U. from her trail. He could not leave with seeing her. Even if it was just to say goodbye.

'Two weeks,' he repeated decisively.

'Fine,' she relented. 'Two weeks from today. Use this when you need extraction. I'll have a team at your location in ten minutes.'

She handed a GPS transponder the size of a quarter with a single button. He slipped it in his pocket with a nod.

There was nothing more that needed to be said. Every minute May stayed was another minute that her transport, wherever it was, could be located. She had to go.

But God, he did not want to be alone today of all days.

Not after everything in his life had fallen apart. He did not want to have to face the thought of fifty-five years passed and a target on his back as the only thing to show for it. Daisy was gone, S.H.I.E.L.D. was an outlawed organization, and his best friend was standing right in front of him and they couldn't even speak to each other aloud without being arrested.

He felt her hand on his arm and his head jerked up. He was drifting.

She eyed him with concern.

'You okay?'

He nodded.

She had to go.

He held up a finger, indicating that she should wait, and walked back into the living room and turned off the light. She emerged from the kitchen, safe in the semi-darkness from prying eyes.

Crossing the room to where he stood at the door, she closed her hand his own and leaned in until he could feel her breath against his ear.

"Happy birthday, Phil," she said, her voice barely a whisper.

Shit.

He knew she had not meant it to be cruel. Ironic maybe, but not cruel.

But she hadn't seen him face-to-face in months. She had no idea what kind of toll this life had taken on him. It was one thing to be against the world when you had a team at your back. It was another matter entirely to stand on your own and watch as your life was picked apart piece-by-piece.

His fingers dug into the skin of her palm as she turned to leave.

 _Don't go_ , he thought. _Please._

He did not know how much of his face she could make out in the dark, but what she saw must have scared her. She released the door handle and closed the space between them. Moving slowly, as if he were a wild animal she was trying not to startle, she pulled him against her and wrapped him in her arms.

It was the first human touch he had felt in weeks.

He felt his resolve shatter.

May placed a hand on the back of his neck as he began to shake, his face pressed against her shoulder to muffle the gasps that bubbled up in his throat.

* * *

 **This started out as a vignette and turned into a full story. More chapters to come!**


	2. Still Floating

**Thanks for the comments and the follows, guys!**

 **May's POV for this next bit.**

* * *

Hot tears stung Melinda May's eyes.

It had taken losing his home, his friends and now, his country, but Phil Coulson had finally broken.

He was fifty-five years old today.

In the old days, when S.H.I.E.L.D. was a globally recognized intelligence agency, fifty-five was the age that agents were "benched", i.e., taken off of active field duty. Most were given the option to stay in the field in non-combat positions. A few even stayed on active assignment for another couple of years, but it was the age that S.H.I.E.L.D. agents saw as a "soft retirement."

Everyone looked to fifty-five with a mix of resentment and relief. No agent liked the idea of spending time behind a desk after a life of seeing the action up close, but by that age, most had completed at least thirty years of field ops. Reaching fifty-five without a bullet in your head was an accomplishment in their line of work. Getting benched meant you actually might live to see retirement.

Now, instead of setting up in an office and commanding his team from the Triskelion or the Hub, Coulson was spending his birthday in a darkened apartment in Arlington, Virginia, with a new life as a defected spy to look forward to.

It was his silence that hurt May the most.

She felt his hot breath on her neck and she struggled to support him as he shuttered with muted sobs. He could not even risk crying out loud, in case it was picked up by the transmitters in his bugged apartment.

Reaching around his neck, she wiped her face with the back of her hand and pulled back. If they stayed like this, they were going to collapse on to the floor.

"Follow me," she whispered.

He took her pro-offered hand and allowed himself to be led past his room into the bathroom. She released his hand and leaned over the bathtub, turning the taps until the shower was running at full blast. It was an old trick, but it worked. If there were any mics in here, they would not be able to pick up their voices over the running water.

Turning her back to him, she unzipped her uniform and peeled off the layers of lycra and synthetic polymer until she was down to her bra and underwear. Angling the shower-head in the dark so it wouldn't soak them was not an easy task. She sputtered as the spray smacked her in the face. It didn't matter. Her mascara was already running.

Coulson joined her at the far end of the tub, minus his trousers, but still wearing his tie and Oxford-cloth button-down. May reached for the knot of his tie.

"You'll ruin this," she admonished in a low voice. "It's silk."

Coulson offered a half-smile, watching her loosen the knot with damp hands and throw it across the bathroom, out of harm's way.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I know you should go."

May rolled her eyes.

"Shut up, Phil."

She reached around his shoulders and pulled him into a half-hug.

"It's my fault," she replied. "I didn't even bring you a cake."

He choked out a short laugh at that.

"Fifty-five," he mused. "Guess I managed to avoid 'the bench.'"

"Come on," she reasoned. "You would have been begging Fury for a field assignment one week in."

"Maybe," he said. "But it would have been nice to have had the option."

There was nothing she could say to that. It was a different world now. New regimes rose and empires collapsed. Good people were thrown on the scrap pile of history. They had seen it happen to friends in countries all over the world. Somehow though, it was hard to believe it could ever happen to them.

They were part of a generation that was indoctrinated with the belief that hard work and strong values went hand-in-hand with success. Yet here they were, having fought the good fight long and hard, watching as the rug was pulled out from under them in their middle age.

May rested her head against his.

"It won't always be like this," she said at last. "The Accords will fail. They are unrealistic and unsustainable. The Avengers' split alone proves that. Another threat will come. Maybe from here, maybe from another world. People will realize that we are stronger together than tearing each other apart. They'll need our help. We'll be able to come back."

"I don't know, May," Coulson sighed. He sat up and leaned against the tile wall. "I never thought it would have gone this far. I guess I just under-estimated people's…"

"Fear?" She supplied.

"I was going to say 'stupidity.' But yeah, 'fear' works."

"The pendulum always swings back the other way," she said.

"Yeah," he agreed, running a hand over his face. "I just wonder if we'll be alive to see it."

"Hey!" She protested. "You're fifty-five, not ninety-three."

He snorted.

"Besides, I'm three years younger than you, so don't include me in this 'we' crap."

She got a genuine smile for that.

"My mistake," he conceded. "I just—this shouldn't have happened, Melinda. What happened? Where did we—I, go wrong?"

"We didn't," she stated. "Some things are not in our control."

He nodded imperceptibly.

"What would you have done differently?" She asked.

"I wouldn't have killed Ward," he answered.

"Okay, so Hive would have infected you instead," she retorted. "What else?"

"I would have stopped Daisy and Lincoln from getting on the quinjet."

"Hive rerouted the manual override," she reminded him gently. "If Lincoln hadn't stopped him—

"I know," he whispered. "I just should have done better."

May did not protest this time. Coulson did self-recrimination almost as well as she did. He had clearly been thinking about it for a while. Maybe it was best if he got it all off his chest.

"I wouldn't have let you leave," he said.

That she was not expecting.

"What?" She muttered.

"You deserved a break," he admitted. "You needed to work things out with Andrew. You needed to get away from S.H.I.E.L.D. and from me. But the moment you left was when I started screwing things up."

"You couldn't have stopped me from leaving," she said.

"I could have apologized for keeping you in the dark about Theta protocol."

"You did."

"I could have apologized more."

She let out a short breath.

"Phil, I didn't leave because of you."

"But you didn't stay for me either," he replied.

Her heart stuttered in her chest.

It was true. She had been selfish. He had lost his hand, then Simmons went missing, and still she had not returned. She told herself that leaving with Andrew was something she needed to do. It _had_ been something she needed to do. But she still felt guilty.

She resented that he would use that guilt against her.

"Sorry," he retracted. "That was—

"No, you're right," she interrupted. "I didn't stay for you. I made a call. I didn't make you a priority because you didn't make me a priority. I was held in Gonzales's cargo hold for weeks before they changed their tactics and offered me a seat on the council, allowing me the opportunity to get our base back. I was loyal to you for all of that time and when you came back, all you saw was betrayal."

She eyed him in the dim light of the bathroom, waiting for his retort. It didn't come.

"I did," he said finally. "I didn't trust you like you deserved. You've always been there, so I took for granted that you always would be. I pushed you away. And I paid the price for it. I was… lost."

May felt the spark of anger leave her and she let out a long, deep breath.

She wished she could do or say something that would take the pain and doubt of the last year away from him. It was times like these that she envied Daisy. Her natural emotional candor was a liability for an agent, but as a friend it was invaluable. Though she would never admit it, it was that vulnerability that endeared her to May more than any other quality she possessed. Daisy would never struggle to find the right words to comfort a friend, or mask her empathy behind a shroud of sarcasm or indifference.

But May wasn't Daisy. She was a grown woman in charge of a covert intelligence agency and now was not the time for sentiment. Not with her quinjet hovering in stealth-mode with a dwindling fuel-supply, waiting for her signal.

Tough love it would have to be.

"Phil, it's done," she said. "All of the decisions we make, right or wrong, we made because we thought it was the best thing to do at the time. There's no point in wondering what we would have done differently. We can't move back. We only move forward. In the end, there's only one decision we've made in the past that matters."

She felt his eyes on her in the dark.

"The decision to join S.H.I.E.L.D. To protect. That's what we're going to do because that's what we've always done. And we're going to keep doing it, even if the rest of the world says it's wrong."

"Is this is a subtle way of demonstrating that you want to make your leadership role permanent?" He joked. "Because that was a pretty good director-speech."

"Absolutely not," she said flatly. "And don't change the subject."

"Sorry," he said, not looking remotely abashed.

"Just get Daisy back and come home, Phil," May ordered. "We'll figure the rest out later."

"Okay, May."

"Okay," she echoed.

"You've got to go," he stated.

She nodded reluctantly.

"I'll give you some privacy."

Coulson drew the shower curtain back and rocked to his feet, leaving her alone in the bathroom to dry off and slip back into her uniform.

This time, when she met him at the front door, his hand was steady on the handle. He poked his head out into the hallway to make sure the coast was clear. One brisk nod from him let her know it was safe.

Once she signaled the pilot of the quinjet, they would have about forty seconds before the cloaking software could be decrypted and they would appear on local radar as an unregistered aircraft in a no-fly zone. In that amount of time, she had to get to the roof, board the jet and get to altitude undetected. Speed was paramount, and at the moment, she really did not know if she had it in her.

She felt heavy, burdened by the weight of all of the problems she could not solve for him. It felt wrong to leave him alone. She had always had his back in the past. But there was nothing she could do by staying that would not put both of them in the A.T.C.U.'s cross-hairs.

She almost jumped when his breath tickled her left ear.

"Be safe, Melinda," he whispered.

The blue eyes that watched her in the shadows were red-rimmed, but clear. His mouth was set in a firm line, determined. Coulson's "good solider" mask was back in place. It wasn't much, but it would have to do for now.

She brought a hand to his jaw and kissed his cheek.

"Two weeks," she reminded him.

He nodded and managed a small smile.

"See you then."

The door closed behind her and she exhaled loudly.

 _Just two more weeks, Phil,_ she repeated silently. _Just make it home in one piece._

May flicked the switch on her watch that signaled her ride and took off down the hallway at a dead sprint.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **The hunt for Daisy is on in the next chapter...**


	3. Hanging On

**Checking in with Mack and Coulson to see how they are holding up behind enemy lines in their search for Daisy:**

* * *

The next morning, Coulson stifled a yawn and blinked up at the fluorescent light above his cubicle. The mug of coffee he had earlier was not making a dent in his exhaustion.

"Morning partner," Mack greeted him.

"Morning," Coulson groaned.

Mack held out an extra-large paper cup with a cardboard sleeve.

"Thought you could use this," he said. "And these."

He placed a roll of gas station-purchased powdered doughnuts next to the coffee on Coulson's desk.

"My favorite! Why are you being so nice?" Coulson asked, only half-joking.

Mack shrugged.

"Happy belated birthday."

"Thanks," he said. "How did you know?"

Mack grinned.

"I didn't," he muttered. " _Someone_ was good enough to remind me."

There was only one person he knew of that would have bothered Mack with something as trivial as a birthday reminder in the midst of the recent chaos.

Coulson looked around to make sure there was no one in earshot. The rest of the A.T.C.U. "Procurement Team" was busy at their desks or chatting in the break room.

"Did she talk to you?" He asked in a low voice.

Mack shook his head slightly.

"Just left a note. Said she would fill you in on the details. Did she?"

Coulson nodded.

"Seems like everything's okay back home," he said vaguely.

He and Mack had had little opportunity enough to talk openly about their true mission before S.H.I.E.L.D. was raided. Afterwards, they had agreed to behave as though they were being monitored and had not spoken of their mission or colleagues in the last two weeks. After seeing the bug in his apartment last night, Coulson felt justified in taking the precaution.

"Well, that's good to hear," Mack murmured.

He paused for a moment before clearing his throat.

"So it looks like we are heading out to Albuquerque," Mack announced.

"Albuquerque? Why? We got a lead?"

"Top brass detected some anomalous tectonic activity in the area. They think it might be Johnson."

 _"_ _Johnson,"_ Coulson thought. Even now, it seemed so impersonal, calling Daisy by her last name. For all outward appearances though, Daisy had to appear to their co-workers as a target to be neutralized. It was because of their history that Mack and Coulson had been tasked with bringing her in. All it would take was one slip, one indication from either of them that their impartiality had been compromised, and they would be yanked from the case.

"What kind of activity?" He asked. "What was hit?"

"Nothing, so far as we can tell," Mack said. "There was a tremor in that region. Hit a 4.7 on the Richter scale. Minimal structural damage to the city, no casualties. But there was no subterranean activity that would have caused that quake. It was her."

Coulson's mouth was a hard line. From Mack's expression, he knew he was thinking the same thing: if there was no target, then odds were, the quake was an accident. That could only mean that Daisy had lost control, if only for a moment. Daisy did not lose control unless she was very, very upset.

"Then we better get moving," Coulson said.

He grabbed his jacket and reached into his pocket.

"Here," he said. "Let me pay you back for the coffee."

"Coulson, it's on me," Mack protested.

"I insist," he said, placing a folded note in Mack's hand with a shake.

Mack nodded and followed him out the door. He waited until he was in the car to read the handwritten note.

 _We have to get Daisy now. Extraction in 13 days._

* * *

Six Days Later

Coulson kicked Mack's door with his foot in lieu of knocking, since his hands were full of his latest fast-food purchase. If there was one thing he had to look forward to in his life in exile, it was that he would never have to eat another cheeseburger again. He had had enough Big Macs and fries over the last few months to last a lifetime.

"It's open," Mack called.

Coulson struggled with the doorknob and shut the door behind him.

"Is it really safe leaving your door unlocked in this neighbourhood?" Coulson asked.

"It is when you're packing a 9mm," Mack replied, raising his tee shirt to show the Beretta in his holster.

"What did the boss say?" Mack asked.

Coulson sunk into the cheap, rental couch and opened one of the paper bags.

"He's pissed," he answered.

"Yeah, well, so am I," Mack said. "Six days in the middle of the scorching desert with nothing to show for it."

"He's close to pulling the plug," Coulson said. "Tried to reassign us to a prison inmate who escaped from his cell last night using some sort of hypnotic power on the guards. I convinced him to give us one more shot."

Mack opened his own bag of take-out, took one sniff and leaned back into the couch, leaving his food untouched.

"So we better get her this time," Mack surmised.

Coulson nodded. There was a lot riding on "this time."

"I did find something though," Mack said.

He reached for his laptop and opened a bookmarked tab on Youtube. He hit the space bar and a paused news report began to play.

"You've seen this, I take it?" He asked.

"Only about a dozen times," Coulson said.

 _"_ _Even though the former intelligence agency known as the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division or "S.H.I.E.L.D." was dissolved, the CIA and Homeland Defence Department have now confirmed that several former S.H.I.E.L.D. agents have re-instituted their agency and are operating without government sanction,"_ the anchor paused and turned to another camera. _"Field correspondent Trisha Park is reporting to us from Washington. Trisha, what does this mean in terms of national security?"_

The screen showed a petite red-head, holding a mic and blinking into the sun with the National Mall behind her. Coulson had no idea why it was necessary to cover the story from D.C. The 24-hour news cycle had to hold their viewers' attention somehow, he guessed.

 _"_ _Well, Edward,"_ Trisha said. _"According to the Advanced Threat Containment Unit, these former spies have been working to essentially undermine the progress made by the A.T.C.U. in terms of neutralizing the Inhuman threat. Several potentially dangerous Inhumans targeted by the A.T.C.U. have disappeared due to interference on the part of S.H.I.E.L.D."_

 _"_ _And this is in direct defiance of the Sokovia Accords,"_ Edward prodded.

 _"_ _That's correct, Edward. These agents are essentially vigilantes and are breaking international law. Their actions are putting the public at great risk."_

Coulson ground his teeth.

The news desk filled the screen again.

 _"_ _Although the rogue agents have alluded capture so far,_ _w_ _e now know the identities of several of these persons of interest,"_ Edward said. _"_ _These include British scientists, Leopold Fitz and Jemma Simmons, as well as former-assassin, Melinda Qiaolian May."_

The photos that accompanied their names were taken from their ID badges from S.H.I.E.L.D. No doubt they were chosen for the bland, impersonal expressions each of them wore, which would elicit no sympathy from the audience. In this context, the pictures may as well have been mugshots.

"'Former assassin?'" Coulson said out loud.

"Yeah," Mack agreed. "That's new. I guess 'specialist' didn't have that person-of-interest feel to it."

Coulson hoped May was too preoccupied in Lima to watch CNN. He could just imagine her reaction at being demoted to a gun-for-hire in the eyes of the public, especially given her personal history.

Mack paused the reel and turned to Coulson.

"This first ran a week ago," he announced.

"You think Daisy saw it?"

"It would explain her reaction."

Yes it would.

What could she be thinking now that her former team were wanted fugitives? Worse, what would she conclude from the fact that he and Mack had not been listed among the defected agents? She must have seen them on her tail with the A.T.C.U. at least once in the last few months. Would she really believe that he was one of them? That he had betrayed her?

Mack's phone vibrated and scooted gracelessly across the glass coffee table. He intercepted it and answered with a curt, "Sir?"

"How long?" He asked. "We'll get there as soon as possible… Sir, all due respect, but this is our case…I understand, but she's not—yes, sir. Thank you."

Mack pocketed the phone and stood up.

"We've got to go," he ordered.

"Daisy?"

"A.T.C.U.'s got her pinned down in an abandoned office building in Baltimore."

Coulson ran after Mack, not bothering to lock the door as it slammed behind him.

* * *

 **Thanks for all of the lovely comments and favorites, guys!**

 **Next chapter: Confronting Daisy...**


	4. Acrobat

**No one puts Daisy in a corner...**

* * *

 _"Don't believe what you hear_  
 _Don't believe what you see_  
 _If you just close your eyes_  
 _You can feel the enemy_  
 _When I first met you girl_  
 _You had fire in your soul_  
 _What happened your face_  
 _Of melting in snow_  
 _Now it looks like this..." -_ Acrobat, U2

The armored Escalade lurched as Mack took a sharp right without breaking. Coulson grabbed the safety handle and looked at the GPS. Three more blocks to go.

"How did they even manage to contain her?" He asked. "She could have leveled that building or leaped off the roof with that quake-blast thing she does if she wanted."

"Sci-tech's got some new kind of gadget," Mack explained. "They've managed to neutralize her powers while she's in a contained space."

"Sounds like Fitz's quantum field thing back on the _Iliad_ ," Coulson said. "Guess we should have expected they would catch up to him sooner or later."

The Escalade screeched to a halt in front of a parameter that blocked off a five-story brick building along the harbor. Mack and Coulson flashed their badges and were ushered around the white plywood barricade by a couple of Baltimore's finest. Standing next to a Crown Victoria, surrounded by a tactical assault team, was General James McDonnell, head of the A.T.C.U.

"General," Coulson greeted him. "Didn't expect to see you here."

"Give us a second," McDonnell told the assault team.

"Coulson," he acknowledged. "I had to see this one for myself. Been chasing this girl a long time. I wanted to be there when we finally brought her in."

"Understood, sir. Johnson is still inside?"

"Alpha Team has her cornered in an office on the fifth floor, south side of the building. She took a tranq dart to the gut, but woke up before we could extract her."

Coulson thanked his thirty years of experience for successfully repressing the flinch at hearing Daisy was shot, even if it was just a tranquilizer.

"What's the hold up?" Mack asked. "I thought we had tech set up that stopped the quakes. Why haven't they apprehended her?"

"The device doesn't work like it was supposed to," McDonnell said. "It seems to have stopped the worst of the damage, but she's still holding her own. Every time one of my men gets close, she's managed to knock them back. The guy who took her down at first was lucky. She didn't see him coming. Now, she so much as sees a laser-sight on her and she's knocked the shooter on his ass."

"Let us talk to her, General," Coulson said.

"You haven't had any luck so far, Coulson. What makes you think your girl's gonna listen now?"

"Because she doesn't have a choice," he answered frankly.

McDonnell nodded.

"You boys can go in and speak your piece," he acquiesced. "She comes in wearing those binders or you tranq her, fine. But if things go south, I've got a ten man tactical assault team ready from four directions ready to take her down."

"Understood, sir."

Coulson took point with Mack trailing close behind him. His heart was hammering so loudly, he could barely make out the chatter of the tact team on his com.

Finding Daisy was not supposed to happen like this.

He and Mack needed to speak to her alone, if only for a few seconds, to warn her to get clear. Now, they were in a building wired with parabolic mics and video, and no chance of explaining the situation to her without blowing their cover. He was going to have to improvise.

He entered the hallway that led to the office where Daisy was sequestered. Five men, all outfitted in Kevlar vests and equipped with Colt LE Carbines, stood in position outside the door.

"Sir!" The agent closest to the door greeted him.

"Agent," Coulson nodded. "Mind if I interrupt?"

"Fine with me," he agreed. "Y'all suited up? 'Course, Kevlar's not gonna help you if she decides she doesn't want to talk."

Mack and Coulson had been outfitted with vests and handed the full-arm binders that would prevent Daisy from using her powers. He had no illusions that she was going to put those on without a fight.

"No," Mack said. "But they might help if one of your boys decides to do something stupid."

The agent put up his hands.

"Easy, Mack," he said. "No one here's gettin' twitchy. We're just making sure she stays put. You do your part, we do ours."

"That easy, huh?" Mack asked.

"Alright, enough talk," Coulson ordered. "We're going in."

He heard Mack let out a low breath as he knocked on the door.

"Leave me alone!" Daisy yelled. "If one more of you comes in this room, I swear, nothing is going to stop me from shaking this place to the ground!"

"Daisy, it's me," Coulson replied.

He measured the seconds in heartbeats, each pulse thrumming so violently his hands were shaking.

She did not answer.

"I'm coming in," he announced. "I promise, it's just me and Mack."

Silence.

"I'm opening the door now."

He heard Mack's heavy footsteps behind him as he crossed the threshold, but everything else seemed to vanish when he saw her.

The last few weeks had not been kind to Daisy Johnson.

She sat in a corner with her back to the wall, glaring up at him. Her dyed black hair was messy and tangled. She wore no makeup, making her seem younger than he imagined her. The plumpness in her cheeks was gone and her normally-rosy complexion was sallow, sickly.

"Oh, Daisy," he sighed.

"Don't," she growled.

"Daisy, it's not what you think," Mack said.

"Oh, it's not?" she demanded. "So you're not working for the A.T.C.U.? You didn't abandon S.H.I.E.L.D. and work for an agency that _tags and imprisons_ people like me? I saw the news reports. I've seen you two following me. You're here to take me in, aren't you? Knock me out and shove me into a box until I can be 'cured.' What the hell happened to you guys? We were supposed to be working to _stop_ the government from doing this!"

Coulson winced at the raw anger in her voice. He saw this coming. That knowledge did not make her disparagement hurt any less.

"Things have changed, Daisy," he lied. "We had to evolve to survive. We didn't have a choice."

Daisy stumbled to her feet, prepared to face her assailants at eye-level.

"Yeah, I guess so," she said. "I just didn't think you'd be so good at it. I guess I should have seen this coming from you, Mack."

She glared at her former partner with all of the venom she could muster.

"You've always been suspicious of anything alien. That brother of yours joined The Watchdogs, after all. I guess that kind of _hate_ just runs in your family."

"Daisy—

"I hurt you," she continued and her voice softened a fraction. "I know you thought you forgave me, but I understand. If I deserve this from anyone, it's from you."

Mack was silent. He could not contradict her without showing his hand.

"But you _,_ " she turned back to Coulson. "How could you join them? Steve Rogers opposed the Sokovia Accords himself! I thought Captain America was your hero, Coulson!"

"Even heroes make mistakes, Daisy," he muttered.

"You _abandoned_ them, Coulson!" She yelled. "You let your whole team become fugitives while you stand here and fight against everything you used to believe in! You were supposed to be the Shield! You were supposed to protect us!

"Fitz and Simmons? They were our friends! Our family! And May. What did she say, Coulson? What did she do when you left her to fight your battles alone?"

Coulson's hands balled up into tight fists. It was not her fault. She did not know. But he wanted to shake her, shout at her. Every accusation seared him. She should know him better than to think he would have left them, left her, shouldn't she?

"She was your best friend, Coulson!" Daisy continued. "She gave up everything for you and you left her!"

"You left first!" He exploded. "You accuse me for abandoning them, but you left us _months_ before the A.T.C.U. took over S.H.I.E.L.D.! You care so much about the team? Where were you when FitzSimmons went weeks without sleep trying to track you down? When Mack had to go on leave because his brother ended up in the hospital after his motorcycle was hit? You think I don't care about May? Who do you think patched her up and comforted her after she punched her arm through a wall the night you left? I would _never_ leave…"

He broke off. He was dangerously close to giving himself away.

Labored breaths resonated in the silence between them.

He continued in slow, measured tones, "I would never leave them if I had a choice."

"Neither would I," Daisy whispered. "I couldn't stay, Coulson. I wanted to, but I wasn't—I wasn't an agent anymore. I was a ghost. I saw how everyone looked at me. Like I was broken. I started to believe it myself. I wasn't doing anyone any favors by sticking around."

She swayed on her feet, not bothering to staunch the flow of tears that ran down her face and soaked her dirty tee shirt. Coulson had to physically restrain himself from crossing the room and holding her, telling her it would be alright, telling her that they could go home.

"Daisy," Mack said from behind him. "You're not just an agent to us, you know that, right? You're not just a co-worker. You're our friend. And you're not broken. The things you went through? No one blames you for not bouncing back after that. It takes time."

Coulson shared a sideways glance at Mack. Something occurred to him. If he could get the tactical team to converge in one position, it would give Daisy a chance to escape and rendezvous with them later. Now he just had to think of a way of letting her know his plan without the assault team realizing what he was up to.

"He's right, Daisy," Coulson said. "You're not that girl I met five years ago at that coffee shop in October. You've grown up at lot since then. Whatever happens, you can handle it. You've proved that."

Daisy looked up at him sharply, opened her mouth and Coulson silenced her with a look.

"Five years ago the first of October, huh?" She repeated carefully. "Has it really been that long?"

"Seems longer some days," he joked lightly.

"But you're still going to have to take me in?" She asked.

"Sorry, Daisy," he said. "You don't have much of a choice."

He held out the binders and inched toward her.

"I guess I don't," she said. Her eyes never left his face.

"Subject is standing down," Coulson reported over his earpiece. "All units assemble in hallway for escort."

 _"_ _Roger that, Coulson_ , _"_ came the reply. _"Moving into position."_

Daisy stared at him, eyes wide with fear and uncertainty.

'Window,' he mouthed. 'Now! Go!'

She shook her head.

"What about you guys?"

"We'll cover you," he said. "Just be ready to catch us."

"Wait!" Mack interjected. "What?"

"Go!" Coulson commanded.

Daisy blasted the window apart in an explosion of glass and wood. Coulson and Mack had no chance to watch her jump before they were assaulted by a barrage of gunfire from the hallway.

So much for not blowing their cover.

Mack had his weapon at the ready, but he was prevented from firing when Coulson activated the holographic shield in his prosthetic arm. Bullets thumped and ricocheted off of the force field and the two agents were forced back against the open window.

"How long will that thing hold?" Mack yelled.

Coulson glanced over at him and spotted the red point of a laser sight focused on Mack's shoulder from a sniper across the street. Apparently, not every member of the tact team had followed orders.

"Not long enough," he answered. "We gotta go!"

"Oh, shi-

Mack's curse turned into a scream as Coulson grabbed him and sent the two of them tumbling into the open air, hurtling toward the asphalt fifty feet below.

* * *

 **I don't normally go in for songfics, but the more I kept writing this story, the more the entire "Achtung Baby!" album reminded me of the characters and how they are reacting to the situation they are in. "Acrobat" was perfect for this one. I would have included more lyrics, but I held myself back.**

 **Next up: The Escape!**


	5. Take a Dive

**Thanks again for all of the comments and favs, you guys! AoS fans are so awesome.**

* * *

Coulson and Mack were jerked out of free-fall with whiplash force ten feet above the pavement. Daisy's concentrated quake-blast slowed their descent until they could stand, stunned but unscathed from their impromptu exit from the fifth-story window. They found themselves standing inside of the police barricade, trapped between the brick wall of the building and five heavily-armed A.T.C.U. agents.

Coulson looked up and saw Daisy crouched behind an SUV in the office parking lot, hands still raised.

"Daisy, run!" He shouted.

Daisy stood and held her hands in attack position. Squinting in concentration, she unleashed a tectonic wave that sent three of the parked Crown Vics tumbling across the street in a cacophony of shattering glass and groaning steel. Then she took off running in the opposite direction.

The shock of watching their rides fly through the air and land in a broken heap distracted the A.T.C.U. agents long enough to give Coulson and Mack a fighting chance at an escape. When the first agent recovered and turned his Sig Sauer on them, Mack took aim and blew a hole in his kneecap. Coulson shot a second agent in the arm and reactivated his shield.

"What now, partner?" Mack yelled over the hail of gunfire.

Coulson winced and glanced behind him at the harbor.

"How long can you hold your breath?"

Mack groaned.

"I'll lay down cover fire," Coulson shouted. "You run for the river. I'll be right behind you!"

Shells rained down around them and Coulson blindly shot back from behind the protection of the holographic shield. Mack took off at a sprint. Coulson waited until his footsteps had faded and he heard the splash of Mack diving into the river. The last bullet in his clip was spent and the trigger of his handgun clicked futilely.

"I hope this works," he muttered.

He turned and held his arm behind him so that the shield protected his back. As he ran across the parking lot and jumped into the river, he could not help but think that that move always looked a lot easier when Captain America did it.

* * *

When Coulson pulled himself out of the murky waters of the Patapsco River, Mack was waiting for him on the opposite bank, soaked through and looking anxious.

"We gotta move," he barked.

Coulson was jerked to his feet by his arm and led to a beat-up Toyota Tercel. The engine was already running.

"You hot-wired a car that fast?" He choked out.

"Get in," Mack ordered.

Tires smoked and squealed in protest at the sudden acceleration and Coulson slammed the passenger door.

"You hired me as a mechanic, remember?" Mack said, answering his question. "We gotta get clear of the city as soon as possible. Did you ditch your phone and com?"

Coulson shot him a withering look. He wasn't recruited yesterday. All of his A.T.C.U. tech, and the GPS tracking devices that accompanied it, was at the bottom of the riverbed.

"Good," Mack answered. "Hey, did you get shot? You're bleeding!"

He followed Mack's gaze down to his pants leg. A red stain had appeared above his right knee.

"Damn it," he muttered. "Didn't even feel it."

He poked at the wound gingerly.

"The bullet's not in there. Looks like it was just a graze."

Mack raised an eyebrow skeptically but did not bother to comment. He shifted in the driver's seat so he could steer with his knee, and fumbled in his pocket. Coulson watched as he retrieved a round object with a red button imprinted on the top.

"What's that?" He asked.

"It's a transponder," Mack stated. "I'm calling for extraction."

"Now?"

"Yes now!" Mack reiterated. "I don't know if you remember the last thirty minutes, but we are seriously compromised! Our cover is shot to hell, Coulson. The A.T.C.U. is literally gunning for us. We have to get clear of this situation and fast!"

"What about Daisy?"

"She's in the clear!" he answered. "You saw to that."

Mack paused, considering.

"What the hell was that back there anyway?" he asked. "You said something that made her stop."

"I set up a rendezvous," Coulson explained. "I didn't meet Daisy five years ago in October. I was telling her to _meet_ me in October at 5:00, at the coffee shop in LA where we first picked her up. She'll be there on the first of October. In two days."

"Are you sure? You really think she got all of that?" Mack asked.

"Why do you think she surrendered?" He retorted. "She's a spy, Mack. We trained her to read between the lines. She got it. We have to be there to extract her or this will all be for nothing."

Mack was silent. Coulson could see him weighing the pros and cons in his head. He knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth.

"I'm sorry, Coulson," he said. "It's too risky."

"Risky? It's—

"If she figured it out, it won't be long until the A.T.C.U. figures it out too."

"There's no way."

"You've been shot," Mack spat. "And your judgement is compromised. We gave Daisy a fighting chance. She knows what she's up against now and she knows we're on her side. She's smart. She knows to lay low."

"And what do you think she'll do when we're not there in two days?" Coulson asked.

Mack shook his head.

"I don't know," he muttered. "But it's out of our hands. We've done all we can."

"We haven't—

"Why do you think May left me a second transponder for extraction, Coulson?" Mack asked rhetorically. "She knew you wouldn't be able to see when enough was enough."

"She's not here!" Coulson protested. "I am!"

"You're not in charge," Mack shot back. "May is. That's why you went into the field and made her Acting Director in your place. Because you knew then that she could make the tough calls when you couldn't."

Coulson fumed silently.

"And she told me to watch your back when she couldn't," Mack added. "That's what I'm going to do. I'm sorry, Phil."

Mack pressed the button on the transponder.

Coulson counted down the minutes until S.H.I.E.L.D. would descend and take them away from Daisy forever.

* * *

 **Since this was a short one, I'll update again soon!**

 **Next up: Some exposition from our favorite scientists and a few reunions...**


	6. Lose your way back home

**In which we check in with FitzSimmons and May is forced to make a difficult decision...**

* * *

S.H.I.E.L.D. Base: Lima, Peru

"How's the new model coming along?" Melinda May asked.

Leo Fitz looked up from his desktop. A program of his own design ran diagnostics in the background. Wires from the CPU snaked along the chrome surface of the lab table to the latest prosthetic hand Fitz had constructed for Coulson. Steel fingers wrapped in synthetic flesh twitched and grasped as electronic pulses ran from the computer to the artificial synapses inside the hand.

"Well, it's alright," Fitz hedged. "But there are… well, there are a few things that need to be ironed out before I finalize this prototype."

"There's nothing wrong the model, Agent May," Jemma Simmons broke in. "Fitz is having second-thoughts about advancing the bio-tech."

"What kind of second thoughts?" May asked.

Since their hasty exit to the new base in Peru, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been forced to downgrade significantly. Fitz and Simmons's new lab was much smaller than the one at the Playground, and they only had a handful of agents qualified to work in a laboratory setting at their disposal. May made it a personal priority to check in with them as often as she could to keep informed of their latest progress and make sure that they had everything that they needed. They had both sacrificed so much out of loyalty to her and the team, the least she could do was show an active interest in their work.

"He's being paranoid," Simmons explained.

"It's not paranoia, Jemma!" Fitz defended. "I've run several simulations outlining multiple ways that this technology could be manipulated from a third party. If I've figured it out, someone else will too."

"A third party?" May asked. "What are you talking about?"

"Fitz believes that the biotech could be hacked," Simmons said.

"Someone could hack into Coulson's arm?" May repeated.

"Any tech carries the risk of being hacked," Fitz said. "Look at what happened to Deathlock. It's not just Coulson I'm thinking of. There's nanotech in the synthflesh we applied to Yo-yo's bullet wounds. If someone were to reprogram the nanites in her skin they could make them destroy tissue rather than rebuild it."

"Who would want to do that?" Simmons asked.

"Seriously?" Fitz asked. "We know what kind of screwed-up people are out there, Jemma. With all of the advances that Dr. Radcliff came up with, there are more people walking around with this tech in their bodies than we ever thought possible. These people could be turned into living weapons!"

"Oh Fitz…"

May felt her eyes glaze over as she listened to the two scientists argue. Their nascent relationship, while amicable enough outside the lab, had done nothing to stop their "professional disagreements" when they were on the clock. The theoretical jargon washed over her, mostly unheard. If and when this biotech thing became a problem, she would deal with it. At the moment, she was waiting for a pause in their banter so she could make a graceful exit.

The com in her ear let out a burst of static.

 _"_ _Director May?"_

"Here, Elena," she answered.

"Got to take this," May said to Fitz and Simmons. "Keep up the good work!"

Fitz stared after her, slack-jawed.

"Do you think she heard a word we said?"

* * *

"We have the signal from Mack's beacon," Elena said, over May's com. "We are moving in now."

"We should be able to extract him in seven minutes, Agen—Director," Joey added.

May stalked down the hall to the Director's office and closed the door behind her.

"Location?" she asked.

"They're heading east from Baltimore moving about 80 miles per hour."

May flicked a panel at her desk and the holographic board on the far wall lit up. A three-dimensional GPS display showed the transponder beacon traveling along a series of back-roads towards a peninsula labelled "Sparrows Point." She had no other visual her team. All of the agency's satellite feed had been cut shortly after the raid on the base. It was driving her crazy.

How the hell did S.H.I.E.L.D. function before cameras? May found she had a new respect for Peggy Carter and her contemporaries for functioning without modern technology.

"Do we have coms on Mack?" She asked.

"Scanning S.H.I.E.L.D. frequencies now," Joey said.

May stood motionless, focusing on breathing steadily as she waited.

Mack had been the one to signal an extraction, not Coulson. It was days before the two-week deadline. Either they had been able to grab Daisy early, or something had gone wrong. If their recent luck was any indicator, she should not hold her breath for a happy reunion.

"Mack?" May heard Elena ask. "Mack, can you hear us?"

"Yo-yo!" Mack's answer rang through the coms. "It's good to hear your voice."

"Good to hear you too, Mack," Elena replied. "Why did you signal extract early? Did you get caught?"

"It's a long story," he grumbled. "I'll fill you in when you land."

May waited as he paused a beat.

"Well, maybe a little after" he amended. "I expect a nice, long welcome after being gone for three months."

"Did you get Daisy?" May broke in. Those two would go on all day if she let them. They were almost as bad as Fitz and Simmons. "Is Coulson with you?"

"I'm here, May," Coulson acknowledged.

"Daisy got away," Mack added. "We broke our cover getting her out. The A.T.C.U. had her surrounded."

May pinched the bridge of her nose and willed herself to keep her cadence steady.

"So she's not coming back?"

The answering silence went on so long that she thought she had lost communication.

"Mack? Coulson? Are you there?"

"I can still get her back, May," Coulson spoke up.

"That is not an option," Mack contradicted.

"I set up a rendezvous with Daisy," Coulson explained. "In two days at the coffee shop in LA where we first met her. She'll be there!"

May's eyes darted back and forth as if she were watching the argument unfold before her.

"Can you stay below A.T.C.U. radar for two days?" She asked.

"Yes!" Coulson answered at the same time Mack shouted, "No!"

"He's been shot," Mack informed her.

The wooden desk behind her creaked when May gripped the corner with her fist.

"Coulson? You got shot?"

In the back of her mind, there was a voice telling her that she sounded like her mother when she was intentionally telegraphing how much effort it was taking to keep her patience in check. Somehow, May was okay with that. It always scared her into shaping up whenever her mom had used that tone on her.

"Just a little," Coulson admitted. "I'm fine! The bullet went clean through!"

 _"Clean though what?"_ She wondered.

"Elena, patch Coulson and I through to a separate frequency," May ordered.

"Yes, ma'am."

May waited as the ambient static in her com lessened, no longer picking up the white noise between the other members of the team.

"Phil?"

"I'm here."

"I need you to be honest," she said. "Is this another Budapest situation?"

"This is nothing like that," he snapped.

May could perfectly visualize his face flushing in indignation. Good. Let him be angry. If bringing up the errors of his past meant that he would not make the same mistakes again, he could be pissed off at her.

"It better not be," she replied evenly. "Because if you do this, you have two days to get across the country with a gunshot wound in your… where, exactly?"

"Leg," he supplied.

"Great," she said. "Your leg. While not getting tagged by the A.T.C.U. And I'm guessing you want Mack to leave?"

"It'll be easier to avoid detection if it's just me," he answered.

May did not respond.

She wanted Daisy back as much as any of them.

Over the last three years, she had forgotten the loneliness that had been such a permanent facet of her existence during her time in Admin. Daisy had been a large part of that. Her sweet, open nature had provided such a stark and welcome contrast to the closed-off world of S.H.I.E.L.D. That repressed feeling of isolation had started to resurface in Daisy's absence. She missed her.

But if it meant Coulson going on a suicide-mission to bring her back, it was not worth it.

She hated not being there. She could not judge the situation objectively if she did not have eyes on the ground. All she had was Coulson's word, and he was too involved to be impartial. He had been emotionally compromised from the start and she had gone along with the plan anyway. It was too late to back out now.

"May?" He asked. "I need to do this."

"I know," she whispered.

She switched her own com back to the team's frequency, ending their conversation.

"Elena, Joey?" She said. "Meet Mack at the extraction point and bring him back to the base. Coulson's staying behind. He's going to complete this mission on his own."

* * *

 **Next Chapter: The Rendezvous**


	7. The Push

**It's time for Coulson and Daisy to have "The Talk."**

* * *

Phil Coulson looked at his watch again.

4:47 pm.

Still.

He was jumpy. He could not seem to keep his left foot from twitching. The third cup of coffee had probably been a mistake. The anticipation and the caffeine had dialed all of his senses up to 11. The gunshot wound above his knee throbbed with a pulsing pain that was hot to the touch. He might have been understating the situation when he told Mack it was just a graze. The bullet had taken out a substantial chunk of flesh. It took a good bit of a spool of thread (and half a bottle of whisky) for him to sew the damn thing up. Another scar to add to his growing collection.

4:48 pm.

 _She'll be here,_ he told himself.

She had to come. He could not leave this mission empty-handed. If Daisy heard him out and made her decision not to come back to S.H.I.E.L.D., then he would have to live with it. But he could not leave without warning her about the danger she was in, at the very least. He had to know she would be safe.

At 4:49, the bell above the coffee shop door rang and Daisy Johnson walked in.

She headed towards his table without a glance at any of the other patrons.

"You're here early," she greeted him. "Afraid I wouldn't show?"

Daisy slid into the booth across from him. She seemed a little better than she had two days earlier. The dark circles under her eyes were gone and her hair had made at least a passing acquaintance with a brush.

He offered her a small smile.

"I haven't had much else to do these last few days. Didn't think it would hurt to be a few minutes early, " he admitted. "I'm glad you're here."

She looked at him intently.

"Why _am_ I here?" she asked. "What the hell is going on, Coulson? What were you doing with the A.T.C.U.? Where's the rest of the team? Are they safe?"

"Anything else?" Coulson asked.

Daisy pouted, looking every bit like the young woman he had hauled out of that van in the back alley four years ago.

"They're safe," he assured her. "You're in much more danger than the rest of the team."

"Me?" Daisy demanded. "I don't have my face plastered on the news every night for breaking the Sokovia Accords. You made an appearance on CNN last night, by the way. You and Mack have joined the A.T.C.U.'s most wanted."

Coulson's fixed smile did not falter.

"I saw," he said. "Which is why I don't have the time to play Twenty Questions. I've got an extraction team coming to pick me up as soon as I give the signal. I want you to come with me."

"Coulson-

"Let me make this clear," he interrupted. "If you stay in the States, you will be hunted down by the A.T.C.U. and put into stasis. If you are lucky, they will find a 'cure' for your powers and release you. The process could take years. If you aren't lucky, they will shoot you on sight and they will rest better for having done it. Since they've been hunting you for months, my money is on the latter."

He watched as her face drained of color. She reached for the condiment caddy and grabbed a handful of sugar packets. She arranged the tiny brown envelopes into a neat row, as if stalling for time.

"Daisy?" He asked.

"I've avoided them so far," she mumbled. "Except in Baltimore."

"How do you think you've managed that, Daisy?" He asked gently.

When she raised her head, she didn't quite manage to meet his eyes.

"It was you, wasn't it?" She muttered. "You and Mack. You kept them from finding me."

"For as long as we could," Coulson confirmed. "We were trying to meet with you, to get you to come home."

Daisy wiped her face with the sleeve of her denim jacket. If his leg was not paralyzed in pain, he would have joined her on her side of the table, hugged her and let her cry. But he wasn't even sure if she would let him touch her now. She wasn't the same person that left six months earlier.

Then again, neither was he.

"Why are you doing this?" She pleaded.

"Daisy, you know why."

"I can't come back, Coulson!" She said. "Everywhere I turned in the base, I expected to run into him. For him to show up at my door and tell me it was all a dream. I couldn't do a damn thing except wallow in guilt."

"It's a new base," Coulson tried.

She banged her palm on the table in frustration.

"Don't you realize that ever since I joined S.H.I.E.L.D., all you have done is fix my mistakes?" Daisy asked. "The Rising Tide, Trip, my father, my mother, Hive… I have done nothing but cause trouble from the moment you picked me up."

"That's not true!" Coulson protested. "You stopped Deathlock from killing me and Fury, you kept your mother from killing innocent civilians, and you opened the portal that brought Simmons back. All of those things that you say you brought on us? They would have happened anyway, Daisy. If it wasn't you, it would have been someone else. The only difference is, you wouldn't have been there to stop it."

Coulson sighed.

He was exhausted. There was only so much he could say to convince her she was wrong. He had first-hand experience in trying to save someone who did not want to be rescued. If Daisy wasn't ready to hear him, then it was useless trying to persuade her otherwise.

"I'm afraid," she confessed.

"Of what?"

"I'm afraid I'll make the same mistakes again," she said. "And more people will get hurt."

 _"_ _Make the same mistakes again."_

He had to smirk. She wasn't alone in that. Ever since May had brought up Budapest, he had gone over the situation again and again, trying to convince himself that he wasn't repeating the past. He had not been very successful.

"What?" Daisy demanded.

Coulson swallowed, considering how to answer.

"Have you heard of Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff?" He asked.

"Yeah," Daisy said slowly. "Of course."

"About ten years ago, they were given an assignment in Budapest," he began. "It was a pretty straightforward op: go in, retrieve an 084, get out. The challenge was, the object had apparently attracted the attention of a terrorist faction. They were closing in the same time Barton and Romanoff were tapped."

"What was the 084?" Daisy asked.

"It was thought to be some kind of weapon," Coulson said with a shrug. "We never found out. The terrorist cell caught up to our agents before they could even get eyes on the object. May and I were called in to extract them."

" _You_ and May were called in to rescue Hawkeye and the Black Widow?" Daisy repeated.

"Try not to act so surprised," Coulson admonished. "I can be pretty badass when I want to be."

Daisy rewarded him with a shade of a grin.

"We were told to retrieve the object if we could," he continued. "But the priority was getting our agents out. As soon as we reached the scene, we knew the 084 was a lost cause. Barton and Romanoff were pinned down in a shootout in the middle of a street, crouched behind a car, and surrounded from all sides. May and I drew the fire of the attackers long enough for Clint and Nat to get clear. Then May called for extraction. When the backup team arrived, they all boarded the quinjet and I stayed behind."

"What?" Daisy asked. "Why?"

"I was convinced I could grab the 084 by myself," he said.

"You thought you could get through a bunch of angry terrorists and get it when two of the best spies in S.H.I.E.L.D. history had failed?" Daisy scoffed.

Coulson pressed his lips together. Maybe he should not have told her this story. It certainly was not going to do any favors for her image of him.

"A few days earlier, my girlfriend of four years had broken up with me."

He held up his hand, anticipating her interruption. "You don't know her. She worked in accounting."

"It was the job. She was in New York; I was always away. I put work first and we both knew it. I thought she understood, since she was S.H.I.E.L.D. too, but…When we got the call to Budapest, all I could think about was going back to that empty apartment with nothing to come home to, having failed at the mission. I needed something…"

"To make you feel like you had a purpose?" Daisy supplied.

Coulson nodded. It was a feeling he knew she could understand.

"What happened?" She asked.

"I don't remember," he admitted. "From the four broken ribs and the concussion I got, it couldn't have been good. I woke up in a S.H.I.E.L.D. treatment facility three days later. The first thing May did when I regained consciousness was ask me if my mid-life crisis was over."

Daisy chuckled.

"She pulled you out, huh?"

"Yeah," he said.

"You're lucky she's got your back, you know that?"

He let out a long breath.

"The point is," Coulson continued. "She thinks I'm making the same mistake again."

"Nearly getting yourself killed over a lost cause?" Daisy asked sardonically.

"More like trying to salvage something from the wreckage all of this, so when I go back, I won't have lost it all for nothing."

She fidgeted under his gaze, turning her attention back to the line of sugar packets.

"Is she right?" Daisy whispered.

"I don't know," he conceded. "Maybe. The difference is, this time, I'm not going after an object of unknown origin. I'm trying to bring one of the most important people in my life home. So, whether May's right or not, it's worth it."

"Coulson—

"You don't have to decide right now if you want to come back for good,"

"Coulson—

"But whether you stay or not, you need to leave the country because—

"Coulson!" Daisy hissed. "They're here."

Although every nerve in his body screamed at once, commanding him to duck or hide or grab Daisy's hand and run, he managed to keep her eyes locked on hers so as not to give himself away.

"A.T.C.U.?" He asked, keeping his practiced façade of calm in place. "Are you sure?"

Daisy looked away from the window and nodded slightly.

"I count two on your 4 o'clock," she muttered. "Another one heading this way on my left."

They listened to the tell-tale screech of rubber on asphalt and the percussive bang of doors opening and closing as more reinforcements arrived across the street from the diner. Coulson's neck stiffened against the impulse to look in that direction. As soon as the A.C.T.U. realized they were made, the clock would start counting down. He needed to buy them as much time as possible.

"That's three more," he counted. "They're lightly armed. It's not a tactical team. They're going to hold us here and wait for backup. Standard procedure."

Coulson slipped his hand inside the pocket of his jacket and closed his fingers around the transmitter.

"I'm calling for extraction, Daisy."

She swallowed. Her eyes seemed to lose their focus.

She was going back to that place she had fallen into when Lincoln died. Back into that emptiness that had been carved out inside of her by the foster system where she was told she wasn't wanted so many times that she believed it. Daisy had learned over and over again what happened to people who messed up. There was no room for forgiveness or unconditional love in her disposition. Love wasn't given. It was earned. And she had lost it. She did not deserve to come home.

In the four years he had known her, Coulson had yet to convince her otherwise. But he sure as hell wasn't going to leave her in that dark place alone.

"Daisy, we're getting out of here," he told her. "We'll figure the rest out when we're in the wind."

She blinked and stared like she had just noticed that he was sitting across from her.

"Okay," she whispered.

Coulson depressed the button on the top of the transmitter.

"Alright," he announced. "We've got ten minutes to shake these guys and get somewhere high enough that the quinjet can reach us. I'm open to suggestions."

"Well," Daisy began. "There may be one thing... Do you know your old boss's phone number?"

"General McDonnell?" he asked. "Yeah, I remember it."

Daisy's mouth twitched, fighting a smile.

"Then I might have an idea."

* * *

 **Next up: The A.T.C.U. closes in!**

 **Getting in to the home-stretch!**

 **I was trying to space out the timing of these last few chapters, but I'm leaving the country in about a week and I want to post them all before I go. So the next update may be pretty soon!**


	8. Just Out of Reach

**Quick update as promised!**

* * *

"Can you repeat that, sir?"

"Clean out your ears, Agent!" The voice of General McDonnell was somehow more intimidating over the phone than he was in person. "I said, 'the subject has escaped!' Sat feed has her heading west Colorado Boulevard, moving towards Glendale on foot."

Agent Grace Clyne frowned into her phone.

"Sir, I don't know how that's possible," she protested. "We've got eyes on Coulson in the diner. Johnson's in the restroom. She couldn't have been gone for more than a minute. There's no way out of there!"

"Who am I speaking to?" McDonnell demanded.

"Agent Clyne, sir," she said.

"Well, Clyne, maybe you weren't awake when our agency briefed you on this particular target, but she is an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. operative with a bad habit of knocking over buildings and collapsing bridges when things don't go her way. I doubt that a locked bathroom was much of a challenge for her."

"I understand, sir."

"Good," McDonnell said. "You have your orders. I need all of your agents in pursuit of Johnson."

"Yes sir," Clyne relented. "And Coulson?"

"Coulson's small potatoes," he said. "He couldn't manage to stay off the radar for more than a few days. We'll find him again. Concentrate on the girl."

"Yes sir," she repeated. "Clyne out."

Grace Clyne's face was burning as she stowed her phone in her pocket and turned to her team. Five agents looked to her expectantly. The way McDonnell was shouting, she had no doubt they had heard every word. Arrogant prick.

"Okay boys, you heard the man. We've got our orders," she announced. "I want one unit in pursuit of the suspect heading west on Colorado. Everyone else, let's set up a blockade at Glendale."

The rest of the agents grumbled their assent and turned back to their vehicles.

Clyne climbed into the driver's seat of her SUV, hesitated, then stood again.

"Douglas?" she called across the hood.

A tall, wiry man with alarmingly red hair turned toward his head in her direction

"Yeah?" He asked.

"Hang back at this location for a minute, would ya? Keep your eyes on Coulson," she ordered. "I want someone in place to catch Johnson if she doubles back,"

"Alright, boss," he muttered with some reluctance.

"Thanks."

Agent Douglas's shoulders slumped as he trudged back to his sedan and settled into the driver's seat to resume his stakeout.

Clyne rolled her eyes.

Douglas could suck it up. Sure, melting in a hot car during the middle of a heatwave wasn't anyone's dream assignment, but they needed an insurance plan. If this plan went south, they could at least grab Coulson. She wasn't about to write this day off as a total loss.

Clyne slammed the door and gunned the engine, following her team towards Glendale.

* * *

Back in the café, Coulson pretended to study the menu and put his hand to his ear.

"Okay," he said. "Looks like they are pulling back. Only one unit left."

"Think you can handle him?" A voice snarked from his com.

Coulson smiled.

"I don't know, May," he replied. "I'm just 'small potatoes', after all. Couldn't even 'stay off the radar for a few days.'"

"The truth hurts," May retorted.

"Thanks for the distraction."

"Thank Daisy. It was her idea." she answered. "Or Fitz for the voice modulator."

"I'm sure you'd be commanding enough even without it," he said.

Coulson glanced over at the bathroom. Daisy was poking her head out with raised eyebrows. He nodded slightly and gestured for her to keep low to the ground.

"Alright," he told May. "We're on our way."

"Seven minutes, Coulson," she reminded him.

"We'll be there," he promised.

Coulson looked under the table to the hunched figure of Daisy, who looked up at him with wide eyes.

"Let's go home."

* * *

"We're not gonna make it!"

"Keep moving, Daisy!" Coulson ordered.

When they reached the seventh floor of the Wells Fargo building, his right knee had begun to lock up. Now on the twelfth floor, he was in agony. But they could not stop. The red-headed agent in the green sedan had called for back-up. It sounded like the entire Procurement Team of the A.T.C.U. was clamoring up the stairwell after them.

 _Extraction in two minutes,_ he goaded himself.

"Coulson!"

Daisy grabbed him by his jacket and threw him against the wall just as a bullet splintered the wooden railing where his hand had been.

"Stand down, Agent Coulson!" A voice called up to him.

He shared a look with Daisy.

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen," he muttered.

Daisy grabbed his hand.

"Come on," she encouraged. "Just three more floors. What's the problem? I thought you were some big-time 'badass'."

"That was a long time ago," he panted, stumbling after her. "When I had two knees without bullet-holes in them."

Another round of gunfire rang out in answer to their retreating steps.

"Let's move!" Daisy yelled.

By the time they reached the top floor, Coulson's leg was on fire. Everything else was disappearing in a white haze of noise and pain.

Daisy opened the door to the roof and he stumbled after her.

"Where is she?" Daisy shrieked. "Coulson, where's the quinjet?"

He blinked into the setting sun, trying to get his bearings. May was here. She had to be. He just had to listen for the engines…

"There," he answered.

Daisy looked at the empty space over the far-right side of the building.

"Where?" She asked. "How can you…?"

Coulson pressed the com in his ear.

"May," he gasped. "Turn off the cloaking shield."

The quinjet materialized, hovering in the air where Coulson was pointing. The ramp of the aircraft lowered. Melinda May stood at the entrance, gripping the side and looking impatient.

"Let's go!" She ordered.

Coulson and Daisy were halfway across the roof when the door of the stairwell banged open and they were greeted by a hail of bullets. Coulson reacted faster than he could think. He pulled Daisy behind him and activated his shield.

"Daisy! We could use some cover!" He yelled.

Daisy peered around the edge of the translucent buffer and held up her hands. The force of the ensuing blow knocked four of their attackers on their backs. Coulson heard the muffled crunch of bone hitting metal as a fifth agent flew into the door behind him. Daisy lowered her arms and took stock of the carnage.

"Hey, it's okay," he assured her. "That should hold them for a while."

The staccato burst of an assault weapon coming from the other side of the door made him reconsider.

"Okay, maybe not long enough," he amended.

The A.T.C.U. tactical team had arrived.

"I'll cover you!" Coulson said. "Get to the quinjet now!"

"But what about y—

"That's an order, Agent!"

He fixed her with a hard stare, daring her to contradict him. Daisy nodded and took off.

Coulson backed toward the right side of the building with the shield pressed against him.

He wasn't going to make it. The door opened and six fully-armed agents poured out with their weapon poised to fire. Even with the distance between them, it wouldn't take any skill to take his legs out from under him with the amount of ordnance they were packing. He reached for his sidearm and then remembered it was spent. He had been so preoccupied with getting to the meet with Daisy that he had forgotten to restock on ammo.

Coulson jammed a finger to his com.

"May," he shouted. "Get out of here!"

He could not make out her reply over the explosions, but he could feel the thrum of the quinjet engines as the aircraft prepared to ascend.

Suddenly, the light from the sun was gone. He was standing in a shadow.

Two members of the assault team fell with textbook-perfect shots in their foreheads. Blue veins of dendrotoxin spider-webbed out from identical ICER bullet-wounds. The other agents turned to see why their teammates had stopped firing.

Coulson looked up to see the quinjet hanging in the air ten feet above him. May stood on the edge of the ramp, her sidearm still trained on his assailants. She spared a downward glance at him.

"I don't have all day, Coulson," she stated.

He did not need any more encouragement.

Checking once more to make sure that the firing squad was preoccupied, he bit the inside of his cheek to distract from the pain in his leg and took a running leap toward the quinjet. His fingers caught the lip of the ramp and he pulled himself up with a groan. Bullets pinged off the metal grating around him as the A.T.C.U. tact team regrouped. May returned fire and the onslaught paused long enough for Coulson to roll on to the deck. A cursory survey of the fuselage assured him that Daisy was on-board and strapped into a seat, looking anxious but unharmed.

"Get us out of here!" May yelled over her shoulder to the pilot.

Coulson looked up at May from his prone position and smiled faintly.

"See?" he said. "Piece of cake."

She opened her mouth to deliver a retort and seemed to rethink it. A line creased the space between her eyebrows and her lips pressed together in a tight grimace.

"What?" He asked.

He followed her line of sight downwards to a hole that had ripped the nylon of her uniform. A thick stream of blood ran from the tear and seeped through the fabric. May touched the wound in her abdomen lightly. When her hand withdrew, it was stained red.

"No!"

Coulson reached for her, but she swayed out of his grasp. She fell onto her side as the jet banked to the left.

"May!"

The ramp vibrated under the strain of their ascent and she slid dangerously close to the edge. From below, the tactical team redoubled their efforts, pelting the retreating aircraft with gunfire, each shot wilder than the last.

Coulson hooked the fingers of his right hand into the slots of the steel-grated deck and grabbed her hand with his left.

"I've got you!" He yelled. "Hold on!"

There was no strength in her grip. Her hand was limp and slick with blood. Coulson clamped his jaw shut with the effort it took to pull her in. With her legs already dangling in the air she was dead weight, and he was working against the increasing pull of gravity.

Somewhere behind him, he heard Daisy yelling at the pilot to stop. The jet came to a halt in mid-air.

"May, come on!" He begged. "You have to help me!"

She raised her eyes to his and frowned. He felt a light tug on the stump at the end of his arm as she began to pull herself forward, gripping his prosthetic. He could still hear distant pops from the weapons of the assault team. A few lucky shots pinged off of the body of the jet. He had to hurry before they hit something important.

 _Come on, May,_ he begged silently. _We're almost home._

A dull crack clanged through the mesh-work below him. Something hit his wrist, cauterizing the synthflesh and exposing the network of circuitry than ran beneath. Coulson watched in helpless despair as his hand spasmed of its own accord and the bullet wound erupted in a shower of sparks. May's fingers lost hold of the hand that was no longer under his control.

Her eyes met his for a brief second, registering the barest hint of surprise.

Then she slipped from the ramp and fell from the plane onto the rooftop fifty feet below.

* * *

 **...**

 **Next: A sort of homecoming**


	9. In the Black

**Quick turn-around; didn't want to leave you guys hanging!**

 **(Also, my flight leaves in two days, so this is kind of a race-to-the-finish situation for me.)**

 **Syfangirl, Belle97, websky, carebear02, alleemaria, Alanna official, sapphire2994, AtreidesAlia, phnxgirl and everyone else, thank you for the comments!**

 **One more installment to go!**

* * *

Four Days Later

Lima, Peru

 _"_ _We've got to turn back!"_

 _"_ _Coulson, the A.T.C.U. is down there!"_

 _"_ _I can't leave her!"_

 _"_ _Coulson, we can't! She's gone."_

 _"_ _May! I'm sorry! May, I'm sorry. I'm sorryI'msorryI-_

She could not help it. Every time Daisy had a moment to herself, the scene replayed itself in her head. May getting shot, Coulson trying to grab her and getting himself shot in the process. It all happened so fast. By the time she had finally gotten the rookie pilot to stop the jet, she reached the ramp only to watch May fall on to the roof fifty feet below with a bullet in her gut.

Of course Coulson wanted to turn back. Daisy hated herself for not being able to let him. But for all of the times he had watched her back, she could not let him run back into a firefight with a wounded leg to retrieve a fallen agent's body. Even if that agent was Melinda May.

The last few days had been exhausting. The shouts of joy at her and Coulson's return had been cut short once the team realized May wasn't with them.

Daisy spent the first day of her re-entry in a daze. She nodded and commented appropriately as Mack and Elena gave her the tour of the new base. She smiled and hugged Fitz and Simmons when they showed her to her new room. It had been decorated sparingly with items from the few boxes that she left behind. Elena and Joey introduced her to the three new members of the Secret Warriors Initiative. About halfway through the briefing of the team's last mission, Daisy realized that she hadn't heard a word that Joey had said for the last ten minutes.

She cut him off with a tired smile and took the smartpad from him, promising she would read over his notes after she had a few hours of rack time. But even though she was beyond exhausted, sleep would not come. Her body was there, but her mind was still hours behind. Somewhere between the moment she agreed to come back with Coulson and that night in her bunk, everything stopped seeming real. Running from the A.T.C.U., the extraction, May falling, seeing the new base, the team… it had all happened so fast. It was too much.

Daisy shuffled out of her bunk and wandered toward where she thought the kitchen was located. Somehow, she had stumbled into the laboratory instead. In the middle of the night, the lab was empty except for a lone figure hunched over one of the work-stations.

Jemma Simmons sat staring at a home-movie playing on one of the computer monitors. She listened to the video on earbuds. Daisy watched the muted scene over Simmons's shoulder.

The handheld recording showed the kitchen back at the Playground. It must have been shot before the base was raided. The camera sneaked up on an unsuspecting Leo Fitz, who was busy cooking something at the stove. Fitz jumped slightly at the intrusion, then smiled and shook his head. Simmons must have been filming.

The camera panned over to the counter and zoomed in on a white sheet cake that spelled out "Happy Birthday, Melinda!" in blue frosting.

Daisy swallowed around a painful tightness that was building in her throat. She missed May's birthday. It was just two weeks after Daisy had left.

Mack appeared and lit the candles on the cake. There was a moment of darkness while the camera's aperture adjusted when lights in the kitchen dimmed. May appeared at the door with Coulson standing behind her, his hands clamped over her eyes. He led her to the cake and dropped his hands. May managed to look both irritated and pleased with the display before her.

She said something then that Daisy could not make out.

From her perch on the lab stool, Simmons let out a burst of laughter that ended in a wet sob. Daisy winced. She could have backed away and gone back to her bunk with Simmons noticing she had been there. But she had done enough running over the last few months. It was time to start picking up the pieces.

"Jemma?" She said.

Simmons jerked with a start and yanked the earbuds from her ears. She hit the space bar on the desktop and the picture froze on May as she pulled her hair back and leaned over to blow out the candles.

"Daisy!" Simmons replied. She swiveled the chair around to face her and wiped her wet face with the sleeves of her nightgown. "Sorry about that. Didn't hear you come in."

"May's birthday, huh?" Daisy asked. "Was it fun?"

"Yeah, it was alright," Simmons said. "Coulson baked the cake, so it wasn't half bad."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there."

Simmons nodded.

"Me too," she said. "But you're back now. That's the important thing."

"But May's not," Daisy concluded quietly.

Tears flooded Simmons's eyes again and she nodded.

"I miss her," she choked out.

Something that had been locked away inside of Daisy since she left that diner broke free. Everything that was buried came rushing to the surface in a nauseating wave of anger, sadness, happiness and confusion.

She reached over to Simmons and pulled her off of the stool in a tight hug.

"I miss her too," she confessed, between sobs. "I missed all of you. I can't believe she's gone."

"Just don't you leave again," Simmons whispered into her hair. "Please, Daisy. We need you here."

Daisy could not speak anymore. She held Simmons tighter and hoped that it would be enough.

She found a grim sort of comfort in the dark mood that had descended on the base. At least this time, she was not the focal point of the collective grief. They shared this loss together. Preferring to avoid those solitary moments when May's last minutes would replay in her head, Daisy surrounded herself with the company and chatter of the others. She did not offer much in the way of conversation. She was content to listen to Fitz and Simmons prattle on about upgrades to the SWI uniforms that would facilitate movement while maintaining bullet resistance, or Joey and Elena talk about tactical retrieval scenarios, or Mack debrief her on he and Coulson's time behind enemy lines.

The only person she had not exchanged more than a few words with since her return had been Coulson himself. He had occupied the director's office for the last few days, getting updates from the team about the A.T.C.U.'s latest movements. Daisy had followed the agency as much as she could from her laptop, but since she had nothing new to offer in terms of intel, she had not summoned the courage to approach him in person yet. She knew she had to talk to him sooner or later. She just had no idea where to begin.

* * *

"Hey, Tremors! Tremors? You with us?"

Daisy shook herself and focused on Mack. She sat next to him on the couch in the lounge of the new SHIELD base, waiting for her turn on the Playstation. She was starting to drift again.

Mack paused his game of _Uncharted_ and discarded the controller.

"Sorry," she replied to Mack's question. "Just nodding off. Haven't gotten a lot of sleep these last few days."

Mack massaged a stiff shoulder with his right hand.

"Yeah, none of us have," he agreed.

Daisy leaned against him and sighed.

"Talk to me, Tremors," Mack said. "What's going on with you?"

She looked up at him.

"How's Coulson doing?"

Mack shrugged.

"Hard to say," he answered. "He's not hitting anything, so I guess that's a good sign. He's doing his job. He's eating and sleeping. I don't know. He just seems kind of checked out. And he's refusing to get that hand replaced. He chucked the old one in the garbage and he's been wearing his arm in a sling ever since."

Daisy sighed again and got to her feet.

"I should talk to him about that."

It was somewhere to start, at least.

"He'll probably be in his office," Mack told her.

"Thanks, Mack."

* * *

She was halfway down the hall to the director's office when she noticed a light coming from underneath the cracked door of a room at the end of the residency corridor. Daisy had quickly learned where everyone on base slept. She had not seen anyone use this bedroom. It must have been May's.

Her stomach twisted in her gut. She could guess who was in there now. A glance down the passageway told her there was no light on in the director's office.

Daisy sighed, tacked on a tight smile and peaked her head in the doorway.

"Hello," she called softly.

Coulson was leafing through a box half-filled with old papers and photos. His head snapped up at her intrusion.

"Sorry," she said, stepping around the door. "Didn't mean to startle you."

"Hey Daisy," he greeted. "You didn't. I was just… I'm just trying to pack some of this stuff away. I keep getting distracted."

"It might be easier with both hands, don't you think?" She teased lightly.

He returned her sad smile and sat back on the bed behind him.

"Fitz is working on a new one," he assured her. "I asked him to dial down the bells and whistles. Keep it as low-tech as possible. He seemed only too happy to do it."

Coulson paused, considering.

"Does that seem odd to you?"

"That Fitz was excited to downgrade your hand?" Daisy reiterated. "It's a little odd. But he's got this theory…"

"Oh yeah," Coulson said. "The biotech-hacking thing. He told me."

"Yeah," She echoed. "Seems far-fetched, but…"

She shrugged.

Coulson's attention wandered. He seemed to stare past her at something she could not see.

Daisy found herself repressing the urge to fidget. She had no idea where to begin on this one. Two years ago, she would have probably broken down crying, he would have consoled her and told her that it was going to be okay. But she had grown up enough in the last two years to realize that May's loss wasn't hers alone. He was hurting more than she was. It was her turn to comfort him. But she did not know how.

"Do you want some help packing?" She tried.

Coulson did not answer. He rubbed one of his eyes with the heel of his hand and blinked several times, as if trying to wake up. He looked exhausted. Mack said he had been sleeping, but Daisy had to wonder if it was actual rest or if it was just him collapsing at the end of a day after working nonstop, so he would not have to think.

"Coulson—

"Did you know that May once paid Clint Barton to tail me for six days while I was working an op in Guatemala?" He asked. "Well, by 'paid', I mean she gave him a case of Rey Sol Anejo."

Daisy grinned, masking her surprise at the abrupt non-sequitur.

"What's 'Rey Sol'? Tequila?"

He nodded.

" _Expensive_ tequila," he affirmed.

Daisy lowered herself to the floor and sat cross-legged next to the half-packed box.

"Why get Barton to follow you? Were you up to something?" she goaded.

"I was in over my head on a mission," he confessed. "She knew it. I knew it, but didn't want to admit it. I don't know how she even found out about it. She was working in Administration at that point. It might have come across her desk."

"What was the op?"

He shook his head.

"I was meeting up with an undercover operative to get some information," he explained. "It wouldn't have been a problem, but there was a rebel uprising at the time. Riots were breaking out all over the place. And I didn't have any backup."

"How did you find out about Hawkeye?" Daisy encouraged.

"I probably wouldn't have," he said. "Except on the last day, the undercover agent and I found ourselves on the wrong side of an angry mob. S.H.I.E.L.D. had infiltrated the top ranks of the government, which is not where you want to be during a coup. I was pinned down, out of ammo. There was a guy with a rusty revolver pointed at my head. The thing looked like an antique."

"Let me guess," Daisy interrupted. "He was shot with an arrow before he could fire."

Coulson nodded with a grim smile.

"It only took half of that first bottle from the case for Clint to spill who sent him," he said. "I never thanked her for that."

"She always had your back," Daisy said, giving a voice to the underpinning of his narrative. "Even when she couldn't be there."

Beneath that thin veneer of calm, she saw the cracks in his mask that told her that something inside of him had broken. Moving with careful deliberation, she got up from the floor and sat down next to him on the bed.

"I'm sorry, Coulson."

She did not dare to speak above a whisper for fear that her voice would break.

He looked at her fully for the first time since she had entered.

"I'm not sorry you're back, Daisy," he stated. "You were in danger and I did what I needed to do to keep you safe."

Daisy winced, but did not look away.

"I just…"

"What?"

"I never told her."

"Thanked her for sending Barton after you?" She asked in confusion.

He stared at her, but did not reply.

 _Oh…_

Daisy swallowed but the knot in her throat would not go away.

"You didn't have to, Coulson," she assured him. "She knew."

He shook his head with a tight-lipped smile.

"I don't know if she did."

Daisy grabbed his arm and pulled him into a hug. She buried her face in his neck so he could not see her cry.

* * *

 **Last update coming soon! The Epilogue (and maybe a new beginning).**

 **I might have enough time to turn out another one before the 4th season starts and makes all of this AU... We'll see how it goes!**


	10. Epilogue: Ultraviolet

Two Months Later

 _Sometimes I feel like I don't know  
Sometimes I feel like checking out  
I wanna get it wrong  
Can't always be strong  
And love it won't be long..._

 _._

Phil Coulson finished the last sentence on the report and cast a weary glare at the unfinished pile of papers to his right. It had taken awhile, but he had finally caught up on everything he had missed in the time he had been gone. That freed him up just in time to tackle the next crisis that had arisen.

Fitz's predictions about biotech being vulnerable to cyber-attacks had proven to be eerily prescient. Contrary to Simmons's assertion that he was being paranoid, it now seemed as though he had not been paranoid enough. In his megalomaniacal zeal to meld art and science into the perfect creation, Dr. Holden Radcliff had constructed a bio-mechanical human body and automated it with his own AI program, Aida. Aida was harmless enough on her own, but within one week of her "birth", she had been hacked by outside forces and was no longer under Radcliff's control.

Daisy had to put her leadership of the Secret Warriors Initiative on hold as she ran down one dead end after another, trying to discover who was responsible for Shanghaiing Aida's software. The rest of the team was busy putting out fires all over the globe as Aida and the biotech replicants she had manufactured bombed weapons' facilities, assassinated world leaders and hacked stock markets. There was no apparent motive or pattern to her movements, and therefore no way to tell who or what she would hit next.

If Ultron had been a time bomb, Aida was a virus or parasite: hiding, mutating and causing destruction without actually destroying her host. They could treat the symptoms, but were no closer to finding a cure than they were when she first attacked.

The global community was understandably terrified.

Yesterday, the President of the United States had contacted Coulson and offered to meet with him in a place of his choosing to discuss strategy. It was a long way from granting him and his team amnesty, or recognizing S.H.I.E.L.D. as a legitimate organization, but it was a step in the right direction.

May had been right after all.

The pendulum was starting to swing back the other way. The world was beginning to remember that there were problems that could be better solved collectively than divided along lines dictated by fear and hate.

But she was not here to see it.

Coulson reached for a cabinet in his desk and his hand paused on the handle. The smartpad inside the locked drawer was linked to a server that was running a facial recognition program against May's bio-metrics. He knew it was probably pointless. There was no way she could have survived a fifty-foot fall with a bullet in her abdomen. Even if the impact of the fall had not killed her, she had landed in the middle of a fully-armed A.T.C.U. tact team. They would never let one of their "most wanted" go without a fight.

But some part of him believed that Melinda May was immortal. He had seen her come through fist-fights, bullets, bombs and Inhuman attacks. No matter how broken she was at the end of it, she always made it out alive.

And the A.T.C.U. never announced that they had caught her.

The news headlines denouncing S.H.I.E.L.D. and its agents continued to run for days after the extraction, before more pressing events surrounding Radcliffe's rogue biotech had bumped them from the spotlight. May's picture had appeared alongside the rest of her fellow fugitives. Why wouldn't the A.T.C.U. let the press know that she had been KIA?

Daisy reasoned that it could be a trap designed to lure them into thinking she was alive so that S.H.I.E.L.D. would attempt a rescue. She had set up the facial recognition software without argument though.

The one good thing that had come out of all of this was Daisy. She had not talked about leaving again since she arrived. When Coulson finally worked up the nerve to ask her what her plans were, she replied that she "might as well stick around."

"After all, someone's got to watch your back," she reasoned.

She wasn't wrong.

Coulson stared at his hand, still grasping the handle to the closed drawer. For the last two months, the server had scanned every available social media outlet and security camera, along with the feed from an American DOD satellite that Daisy had managed to commandeer. There had not been a single hit. If May was alive, she was laying low. He had monitored the smartpad compulsively for weeks before he locked it in his desk and limited himself to two checks a day. He had enough on his plate without having to worry that his team thought he had gone insane, obsessing over another futile personal quest.

He tried to space out the time between viewings to eight hours. The analogue clock propped on the shelf, next to Mack's model of Lola, told him it had been six hours since he had last checked.

 _Good enough_ , he thought.

The thumb-scanner authorized his print and the cabinet popped open, revealing the darkened screen of the smartpad at the bottom of the wooden drawer. A finger swipe activated the facial recognition software.

Red print at the bottom of the program blinked the results of the last six hours of scanning: 4 possible matches.

Coulson collapsed in his chair.

The first hit was a partial match, a profile view of a woman, roughly May's height and build, climbing into the passenger seat of a long-haul truck in Chula Vista, just south of San Diego. The next two matches were of the same woman, taken by street cams, as the truck headed south to the Mexican border. Although the woman did not attempt to hide her face from the cameras, the resolution was too pixilated for Coulson to tell for sure if it was her.

The final recording was taken two hours ago from a security camera at a gas station in Tijuana. The camera recorded single-frame shots in three second intervals.

He watched as the grainy stills showed a woman in a dark tank top and shorts limp into the frame. She paused and turned to the camera. For the space of eight pictures, Melinda May stared at him in black and white from a back alley in Mexico. There were hollows in her once-full cheeks and dark smudges under her eyes. She looked like she had been through hell since he had last saw her.

 _But she was alive._

His eyes searched the background, looking for identifiers to pinpoint the exact location where she had been standing. The recording of May pulled a burner phone from her back pocket, moving in stop-motion jerks. She held it up to the camera for the space of one frame, then she turned and walked away.

Coulson nearly dropped the smartpad in his haste to retrieve his own phone from his jacket pocket. Daisy had programmed the device to block any calls to his personal phone from unknown numbers. It took him three frustrating minutes to access the log of messages and missed calls that had been routed to the junk drive.

A message sent two hours ago stood out among the list of telemarketers and spam adverts.

The text consisted of a telephone number with a Mexican country code. It was signed, "-M".

Coulson misdialed the number twice before he could get his fingers to cooperate.

On the third ring, she answered.

"Hello?" The voice was dry and cracked on the second syllable.

Coulson's lips moved, but his voice didn't seem to be working.

"Coulson? Phil, are you there?"

Coulson reached over to the controller on his desk and toggled the holographic display that was linked to the sat feed. He needed to get a real-time view on this. He had to see her. He had to be sure.

"May?" He managed to croak.

"You got my message," she stated.

"Yeah, I got it," he muttered. "May, how did you…? You fell. You were shot. The A.T.C.U. was everywhere. How are you alive?"

He heard her exhale loudly and then a long silence followed.

"May?"

"They thought I was dead," she stated woodenly. "I passed out, they threw me in the back of a van. I woke up halfway to the A.T.C.U. medical examiner."

"God..."

"I rolled out of the van-

The display on the far wall beeped, indicating that the satellite had zeroed in on her location. He watched as the image resolved on the same gas station he had seen in the security recording.

Her voice faded into the background of his consciousness. The sat-feed showed a woman leaned against an out-of-service telephone booth, holding the frame tightly with one hand and gripping a cell phone with the other.

 _May._

"...Subdural hematoma," she continued. "The hospital patched the bullet wound, set a broken registered me as a Jane Doe. I got out as soon as I could. Been dodging the A.T.C.U. ever since. Today was the first day I had a chance to make it across the border."

"Yeah, I saw," he murmured.

"I hoped you were watching," she said. "Phil, I've gone as far as I can on my own. It's been a rough few weeks."

He wanted to laugh at the depth of the understatement. "Rough" did not even begin to cover what the last few weeks had been.

The satellite feed showed her sliding down the side of the glass booth. She sat in the dirt and brought her knees to her chest.

"May, don't move," he said. "I'm coming to get you."

He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.

"Is she back?" May asked him suddenly. "Daisy, is she back? For good?"

Coulson couldn't help but smile a little at that.

"Yeah," he answered. "She's back."

"Good. That's good." Her voice sounded far away.

"Hang in there, Melinda. I'll be there as fast as I can."

"Phil?" She interjected. "I missed you."

Coulson closed his eyes as he shut the office door behind him.

"I missed you too," he managed. "I'll be there soon. I promise."

Within four minutes of hanging up the phone, he was seated in the passenger seat of a quinjet heading north at top speed.

The pilot told him they would arrive in Tijuana in an hour and a half. That gave him ninety minutes to think about what he was going to say when he saw her. He had to get the words just right.

It wasn't every day you got a second chance to tell a dead woman how much you loved her.

And if anyone knew the importance of second chances, it was Phil Coulson.

.

.

.

 _Oh sugar, don't you cry  
Oh child, wipe the tears from your eyes  
You know I need you to be strong  
And the day is as dark as the night is long  
Feel like trash, you make me feel clean  
I'm in the black, can't see or be seen  
Baby baby baby light my way…_

 _When I was all messed up and I had opera in my head  
_ _Your love was a lightbulb hanging over my bed…_

 _Ultraviolet love…_

* * *

 **Closing notes: The song "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" has many interpretations.**

 **The one I had in mind when writing this is that it is a song about a person illuminating the singer's path through the hardest times of his life. The title "Ultraviolet" refers to a powerful light that is present, but invisible to the naked eye. I thought this was a perfect analogy for May and Coulson's dynamic.**

 **Thanks for following, everyone! I hope you enjoyed it!**


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